Without You
by bashipforever
Summary: Illyria throws Angel back in time and it ends up affecting more then just his life.
1. Default Chapter

Chapter One  
  
Wolfram and Hart 2004  
  
Illyria pushed Harmony to the side with no more thought then we give a fly. She stormed into Angel's office and planted her hands palm down on the desk with enough force that Angel heard the wood crack.  
  
He looked up at her and tried to maintain the bored expression on his face. "You wanted something?"  
  
"You are the ruler of this company and these people," Illyria stated.  
  
Angel looked at her quizzically. "I'm the CEO of Wolfram and Hart."  
  
"This is your kingdom," she said.  
  
"In a manner of speaking, I suppose so," he agreed.  
  
"Then it is your fault I am here trapped in this fragile shell," Illyria said.  
  
Angel cocked an eyebrow at her. "I'm not really seeing where you're going with this."  
  
"Perhaps not, but you will." She reached over and grabbed him by his shirt front. She jerked him over the desk easily. "You will pay for your blunder," Illyria said as she tossed him across the room. She flicked her wrist and the very air he flew through slowed and became liquid and distorted.  
  
New York 1996  
  
The homeless man watched the pile of trash and debris with sharp eyes. He sat in a crouch, every muscle tense, waiting for something. That something came in the form of a huge rat as it squeaked and ran out of the pile. The man grabbed the rat up with lightening quick reflexes. It squealed as he sank his teeth into its body. After just a few seconds the man tossed the body of the rat aside and waited patiently, un-moving for the next rat to scurry out from its place.  
  
The man tossed the body of a final rat to the side and stood up fluidly. He walked through the alleyways, keeping close to the walls and out of sight. There was nothing about this man that distinguished him from every other homeless person on the streets of New York City. He was dirty and walked with a shuffle, his head down, his tangled, long, dirty hair in his face, if one watched very carefully though it was apparent that the shuffle was a bit put on as if he did it to fit in. He stopped and sniffed the air like a dog would.  
  
"Get the hell out of the way, street scum," the man driving the street washer yelled.  
  
The homeless man ducked his head even lower and scrambled out of sight down another alley. He glanced around cautiously as he approached a burned out building. He moved aside a piece of plywood that covered a broken window near ground level. He slipped through the window and dropped down to the stack of abandoned wooden boxes. He slid the plywood back in place and then jumped down to the concrete floor of the basement he lived in.  
  
The homeless man stopped and sniffed the air of the dark basement. There was someone else here.  
  
"Alright, I know you're here, come on out," he said. His voice did not match his appearance. His voice was smooth, deep and soft, like velvet or a length of silk.  
  
A girl, no more then fourteen, stepped out from the shadows. She was bedraggled and dirty, much too thin. Her dark hair hung in dirty, lank strands around her face. Her blue eyes were impossibly big in her elfin face. "Sorry, Mister, I didn't mean to crash. I just wanted a place to stay tonight." The girl cast her eyes up to the ceiling a moment. "All the other floors have a bunch of druggies and pervs sleeping there."  
  
The man squinted his eyes and studied the girl carefully. "What makes you think I'm not either of those?"  
  
"I don't know, but if you were you'd probably be staying on the upper floors with them instead of in this basement," the girl reasoned.  
  
The man nodded. "You can stay here tonight." He beckoned her over to the far corner away from all the windows. She followed very closely. He could see in the dark. She couldn't. He squatted down and fumbled in the dark. There was a hiss and the smell of sulphur as he struck a match and lit the nub of a candle. He fitted it into the neck of an old wine bottle and gestured for the girl to sit down amid the pile of blankets he'd gathered.  
  
"I'm Ariel," the girl said as she sat down.  
  
The man smiled very slightly at her. "I'm Angel."  
  
*  
  
Ariel stayed in the burned out basement one night. That one night turned into a week and the week turned into three. She gave Angel a purpose, someone to take care of. He made sure she was tucked in for the night and then he slipped out of the basement through the window. He had rats to catch and he wanted to get Ariel something for breakfast. If he was at the donut shop a couple of hours before it opened sometimes he could get the day old donuts when they threw them out.  
  
Angel was walking back from the donut store when he heard the scream. He was almost certain it was Ariel. He gripped the box of donuts under his arm and used his preternatural speed to get to her. There were three men gathered at the dead end of the alley. Angel thought he recognized them as regulars from the upper floors of the building he lived in. One of them held Ariel from behind, his hand over her mouth. Her eyes looked around wildly, scared. One of the other men was busy unbuckling his belt buckle. He unzipped his pants and advanced toward Ariel. She kicked and tried to scream.  
  
"For God's sake Jerry, get her legs. If the little bitch kicks me in the nuts I'm gonna have your head," the man said.  
  
"Not before I have yours," Angel growled.  
  
The men turned their attention to him. "Well if it isn't the little piss ant that sleeps in the basement. We thought you were a mute eunuch."  
  
"I'm impressed you know words longer then one syllable. Let the girl go," Angel said.  
  
"What if we don't?" the man named Jerry challenged him.  
  
"I'm going to make you very sorry," Angel promised.  
  
The men laughed loudly. One of them threw a sloppy punch at Angel. He grabbed the man's arm and slung him into the brick wall hard enough that he was sure the man saw stars. The man with the unbuckled pants gulped hard and started to do his pants back up. He backed away stuttering. Angel glared at him, his eyes flashing yellow. The man ran.  
  
"Looks like it's just me and you, Jerry. Now let her go," Angel said.  
  
"What? You doing her?" Jerry asked.  
  
"I'm not going to tell you again. Let her go,"  
  
"Make me," Jerry said.  
  
Angel moved faster then any human. Before Jerry had a chance to blink he was in front of him. He slammed the butt of his hand against Jerry's chin. Ariel dropped to the ground.  
  
"Ariel, run. Get back in the building. I'll be right there," Angel said as he caught Jerry in the gut with a roundhouse kick. Jerry slumped to the ground. Angel grabbed the man by the throat and pinned him to the wall. He crouched low and looked in the man's eyes. "Never touch her again."  
  
He stood up slowly and casually walked over to where he'd dropped the box of donuts.  
  
"I'll get you, you son of a bitch and the little whore too," Jerry choked out as he spit blood from where he bitten though his bottom lip when Angel hit him in the chin.  
  
"I mean it, Jerry. Never touch her again. You won't live through the next encounter," Angel promised.  
  
He picked the donut box up and slipped inside the basement. He covered up the window and then made his way over to where Ariel had already lit a candle. It was a glowing bastion of light in the darkness.  
  
"Are you okay?" Angel asked the girl as he sat down.  
  
Ariel nodded. Tears streaked her face and her eyes still looked scared. "Yeah, thanks. They-"she stopped and stared hard at the flame of the candle.  
  
"Why did you leave before daylight anyway?" Angel asked. He'd told her to never leave the basement when it was daylight. Night time was his hunting time. He couldn't protect her then. In the daylight she was fairly safe.  
  
"I had a bad dream. I went looking for you," she said in a very small voice.  
  
Angel sighed and handed her the box of donuts. Ariel took a glazed donut from the box and devoured it. She took another and ate this one a bit more slowly.  
  
"My real name isn't Ariel you know. It's from that movie, The Little Mermaid. She was so pretty and I sort of wanted to be her, so when I ran away I just decided to be her. I bet Angel isn't your real name is it?" Ariel said.  
  
Angel swallowed and shook his head.  
  
"So what is it?" Ariel asked.  
  
It took Angel a moment to answer. "It doesn't matter. I'm not that person anymore. I haven't been in a very long time." He laid down in the blankets, turning his back to the girl and her questions.  
  
*  
  
Ariel reminded Angel of his little sister, Kathy. She reminded him of what Kathy might have grown up into if he hadn't killed her. It was both wonderful and painful to be around Ariel. She bubbled with so much life and so much love. She didn't understand why Angel wouldn't go to the park with her during the daytime and she didn't understand why she always had to stay in the basement after dark. She said she got bored while Angel was away.  
  
He stayed with her as much as possible. He told her stories and when he ran out of those he pilfered comic books from garbage dumpsters and read those to her. Occasionally he'd find a book to bring her. He brought her a doll one time that he'd found in the dumpster. It was missing a leg but you couldn't tell under the long dress. Ariel had scoffed and told him she was too old for dolls, but he noticed that she slept with the doll every night.  
  
Angel snuffed out the candle flame with his thumb and index finger. He tucked the blankets a bit more firmly around Ariel's chin and then slipped through the basement window into the night sky. He had gotten a late start tonight. Ariel had wanted him to tell her stories until she fell asleep, then she had struggled to stay awake in order to listen to them.  
  
He had to wander a little further from his alley to find rats that night. He didn't like wandering so far from Ariel. She had nightmares often and when she woke screaming she looked for him. Angel found an alley where the rats were ripe. It didn't take long for him to catch enough to satisfy his hunger. He never really got full on rat's blood. It was thin and had a bitter taste to it, but he didn't have many options. Rat's blood would have to do. Angel stopped by the bakery and managed to nab a loaf of sweet bread off the very top of the garbage dumpster. He walked back toward the basement.  
  
He broke into a run, the bread dropped and forgotten when he smelled it. He rounded the corner and saw her little body lying broken in the alley. A roar clawed its way out of his throat as he gathered her in his arms. Her throat had been slit. He rocked her against his chest, tears streaming from yellow, feral eyes. He never heard the other girl coming.  
  
"Out a little close to dawn, aren't you vampire?" a girl's voice said.  
  
Angel looked up, feral yellow eyes glowing in the pre-dawn light. He hadn't completely shifted into game face, but only through force of will. He hadn't been able to keep his eyes from going yellow.  
  
"It's not what you think," Angel said.  
  
"Yeah, tell that to the little girl you just killed," the girl said.  
  
"No, I didn't-I found her like this," Angel carefully laid Ariel's body on the dirt. He stood up slowly, not wanting to startle the other girl.  
  
"Tell it to some one who actually cares," the girl said as she whipped a stake from her pocket.  
  
"Slayer-you're a slayer," Angel swallowed hard.  
  
"Yup, the one and only, India Cohen, wish I could say it was a pleasure to make your acquaintance but it's not," India said. She jumped at him, catching him in the jaw with a graceful spinning hook kick. Angel stumbled backwards. He caught himself against the garbage dumpster. He glanced down at Ariel's body just before India slammed an uppercut into his chin. Angel fell back, his elbows cracking against the hard dirt of the alley. He shook his head, trying to clear the stars he saw dancing before him.  
  
He barely had time to register it before the stake slammed into his heart. Within seconds Angel, the vampire with a soul, was dust beside the body of the little girl he'd tried so hard to save.  
  
Wolfram and Hart 2004  
  
Lilah Morgan gathered up file folders and notes. She stood and smoothed down her professional, pewter gray skirt. She walked out of the office on heels higher then most women could stand in. She paused in front of Holland Manners' office and glanced at her watch. She had an eleven o' clock meeting with him to discuss the swiftly approaching apocalypse.  
  
"What are you waiting for, Lilah? Someone to open the door for you?" Lindsey asked stepping up beside her.  
  
Lilah smirked, "I didn't realize you were invited to this little discussion."  
  
"Personally, by Mr. Manners himself," Lindsey said opening the door.  
  
Lilah elbowed him and smiled sweetly. "Ladies first, Linds."  
  
"I don't see any ladies here," Lindsey replied just as sweetly. They sat down at the long table in tandem. Holland Manners was already there along with half a dozen of the top executives at Wolfram and Hart.  
  
"Lilah, Lindsey, so glad the two of you could make it. I've just spoken to the Senior Partners and it seems we have a problem," Holland said.  
  
"Yes, I got your memo, Sir. I brought along all the information I've got on the apocalypse and there do seem to be some discrepancies in some of the notes," Lilah said.  
  
"Indeed there are. The partners are not happy. Apparently things are not as they should be for this apocalypse. Lindsey, Lilah, I'm counting on both of you to make this right," Holland said.  
  
"Of course, Sir. Where would you like for us to start?" Lindsey said.  
  
"We are missing one of the key players for the apocalypse. The Senior Partners aren't sure what occurred but apparently there are several prophecies mentioning this particular player. I need you to find out what happened to Angelus, the vampire with a soul," Holland said. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two  
  
Sunnydale 1997  
  
Buffy Summers, the one girl in all the world with the strength to fight the demons, the chosen one, walked down the dark alley. She could hear the music from the club, the Bronze Cordelia had said. She glanced down at her jeans and denim shirt. She hoped it was alright for a night out. Sunnydale was a fresh start and she needed one after she'd burned down the gym at her old school. Sure it was filled with vampires but no one really cared once it was so much embers and ash.  
  
Buffy paused in the dark alley. She listened for the sound of anyone or anything behind her. She glanced up at the thin bar that spanned the space between the buildings above her. This felt like déjà vu some how, only it couldn't be. She'd never been in this alley and there had never been anyone following her. Wait a minute, where did that thought come from. Of course there was no one following her. She shook her head, "Looks like the slaying is getting to you, Buff. Relaxing with nice ice mocha is what you need," she whispered to herself as she walked under the bar.  
  
She wasn't even sure why she'd chosen to come down the alley instead of walking down the sidewalk to the front door like a normal girl. Merrick, her old watcher, had always told her to listen to her instincts. She supposed that's what she was doing, listening to her instincts. She shrugged as she approached the Bronze. Everything seemed quiet on the home front. She slipped inside the loud club and wandered around. She caught sight of Willow.  
  
Buffy sat down beside the red head. "Hey,"  
  
"Oh, hi," Willow said.  
  
"You here with someone?" Buffy asked.  
  
Willow shook her head. "No, I'm just here. I thought Xander was gonna show up."  
  
"Oh, are you guys going out?" Buffy asked.  
  
"No, we're just friends. We used to go out but we broke up," Willow said.  
  
"How come?" Buffy asked. The red head was obviously besotted with Xander.  
  
"He stole my Barbie. Oh, we were five. I-I-I don't actually date a lot," Willow said.  
  
"Why not?" Buffy asked and took a sip of her iced mocha.  
  
"Well when I'm with a boy I like I find it hard to say anything cool or witty or at all. I think boys like girls who you know, talk."  
  
"Wow, you really haven't been dating much," Buffy said.  
  
"It's probably easy for you," Willow said looking enviously at the blond.  
  
"Yeah, real easy," Buffy grumbled looking out at the vast expanse of people she didn't know at all.  
  
"Well, you don't seem too shy is all," Willow said.  
  
"Well my philosophy is, do you want to hear my philosophy?" Buffy asked.  
  
Willow nodded.  
  
"Life-"Buffy stopped. The feeling of déjà vu overcame her. She glanced around the Bronze and her eyes fell on a guy that was way to Debarge to be of this decade. "is uncertain. Trust your instincts. Stay here a sec, I'll be right back."  
  
Buffy pushed through the crowd, keeping her eye on the I love the 80's freak. He took a brunette girl by the arm and they walked outside to the back of the Bronze. Buffy followed. She waited until the vamp and the girl were well away from the door before calling attention to herself.  
  
"And I thought we were going to try for a monogamous relationship," Buffy shouted as she tried to divert the vamp's attention.  
  
The vamp whirled on his heel and grinned lecherously at her.  
  
"Excuse me, who the hell are you?" The brunette asked haughtily.  
  
"Honey, look at him. Do you really want to be seen with someone who thinks Rick Springfield was the height of fashion?" Buffy said.  
  
The brunette looked the vamp up and down and shrugged. "I guess you have a point. Sorry, but she's got a point," she said as she started down the alley back towards the Bronze.  
  
"I'm partial to brunettes but you'll do," the vamp said as he slipped into game face.  
  
Buffy whipped her stake out from behind her back and held it up. "But you know what they say, blondes have more fun." She launched a snap kick at the vamp. He dodged out of the way just in time. Buffy rushed at him with a right hook. She caught him solidly in the jaw and kept the pressure on as she pummeled him against the wall. She shoved a stake in his heart.  
  
"Slayer..." the vamp screamed just before he turned to dust.  
  
Buffy dusted her hands off and tucked her stake back in her pants. She didn't see the blonde vampire in the school girl outfit slip around the corner.  
  
When Buffy walked back in the Bronze Willow had been joined by Xander.  
  
"Hey, Buffy, I was afraid you'd left already," Xander said in greeting.  
  
"Nope just went to get some fresh air," Buffy said.  
  
"So, Buffy, why don't you tell us all about you," Xander said.  
  
"Uhm, well-there's not that much to tell?" Buffy stalled. "But hey, Willow told me the story about the Barbie. So you guys have known each other, what forever?"  
  
"Yeah, Xander used to stick salamanders down my shirt when we were little," Willow said.  
  
"I was only paying you back for pouring sand down my shorts when we were seven!" Xander rushed to his own defense.  
  
Buffy sat back and listened, amused at the stories the two told, each trying to out do each other. Maybe Sunnydale wouldn't be as bad as she thought. There was still the slaying and apparently she couldn't get out of that. Destinies sucked but maybe she could avoid being labeled friendless and juvenile delinquent here. Note to self, do not burn down high school gym, she thought. If she was lucky she could keep the secret slayer identity and the town safe from vampires.  
  
*  
  
Buffy scrambled up the oak in front of her house. She slipped in through the window and paused, listening for her mom's soft snoring. Once she heard it she crept to the bathroom. She pulled the bloodied tee shirt she wore over her head. She winced as she saw the four raw, bloody puncture wounds on her shoulder.  
  
"It's just wrong that a vamp has something besides teeth to puncture you with," Buffy grumbled as she pulled the first aid kit out from underneath the bathroom sink. She winced as the antiseptic she dabbed on the wound stung. The puncture holes were pretty deep.  
  
"Fork guy had some major grip," she grumbled. The vamp with the metal claw had taken her by surprise. She'd been going through Weatherly Park on a normal night patrol and he'd jumped out of the bushes. Buffy had been caught off guard and fork guy managed to pin her to the ground with the claw that was where his hand should be. She'd only managed to kick him off by tucking her knees underneath her and shoving him away from her with her feet.  
  
Buffy taped a square of white gauze over the puncture wounds and crawled in bed. She had to give Sunnydale one thing, it attracted a much wider variety of vamps then Los Angeles ever had. Buffy glanced out the open window, almost as if she expected someone to be crouched there just inside. There was no one of course. She yawned and closed her eyes, just as she drifted off to sleep the thought drifted through her mind that there should have been someone there to warn her about fork guy. She mumbled to the darkness, "oh yeah so where the hell is he?"  
  
*  
  
Buffy walked into the school library in a bad mood. She'd gotten no sleep again last night. The Master and his lackies were keeping her busy. They'd ruined her first and most likely last, date with Owen. She was trying to do the normal kid thing, trying to stay out of the "bad crowd". The bad crowd always seemed to find her though.  
  
Buffy threw herself down a chair and cradled her head in her hands. Giles walked out from the office.  
  
"Buffy, are you quite alright?" He asked, alarmed to see his slayer in such a mood.  
  
"Yeah, long night with the anointed and all," Buffy said.  
  
"Indeed, but you did stake him, correct?" Giles said.  
  
"Yeah, he's dust just like any hope of any relationship I ever had with Owen," Buffy grumbled.  
  
"Buffy, you are not here to date. You are here to fight the forces of evil," Giles said.  
  
"I know. I get that, Giles. Thanks for the recap though. Geez, I might as well be one of the undead, oh wait they have more of a social life then I do," Buffy grabbed her book bag and ran out of the library.  
  
Giles shook his head and returned to his book. The girl didn't understand it was an honor and a privilege to be the chosen one, but she would in time.  
  
Buffy was distracted at lunch. Willow and Xander sat with her, trying to cheer her up but there was nothing doing. She was brooding, dwelling on the whole chosen one factor and there was no one she could talk too. Tears rushed to her eyes as Willow told some kind of funny story. Buffy ached to tell her about slaying and how much it sucked, which would somehow make it suck less if she could share it with someone, anyone.  
  
"Buff, you sure you're okay?" Xander prodded.  
  
Buffy nodded. "Yeah, just not sleeping well, new town, new bed, you know."  
  
"This wouldn't have anything to do with a certain guy named Owen would it?" Willow asked.  
  
"No, Will. Owen and I-we just-you know he's-"Buffy stopped. There was no way to tell Willow that she'd dumped Owen in the middle of date to take off and dust a vamp at the morgue because Giles had paged her. She'd gone back to the Bronze after the dusting but Owen had been pre occupied with Cordelia. When she'd interrupted them, Owen had brushed her off and mentioned how nice it was of Cordelia to keep him company. Buffy had taken that to mean there would be no second dates with Owen.  
  
"He sorta fell for the evil Bitcha Queen C, didn't he?" Willow said. She'd seen the two of them walking down the hall as if a crowbar couldn't separate them.  
  
"He really did," Buffy tried to smile.  
  
"Don't worry, Buffmiester, not all the boys here are blind," Xander said with such sincerity that Buffy wanted to crawl in his lap and bawl. She couldn't tell him about vampires, demons and slayers either. She was risking enough just being friends with Willow and Xander, getting any more involved with Xander would be like issuing him a death sentence. She was beginning to see why the prophecies never mentioned the chosen one and her friends.  
  
She smiled weakly at Xander, "Thanks, Xan. I'm gonna go spend free period in the library, or something."  
  
"Kay, Xander and I have Biology but if you need any help with the homework, let me know," Willow said brightly.  
  
Buffy nodded. She didn't tell Willow the only homework she was going to be studying was weapons with Giles. She got up, feeling more like sixty then sixteen, and walked to the library. 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three  
  
Buffy crept through the cemetery. She was trailing a vamp from the Bronze. She shook her head. Sunnydale teens needed industrial strength therapy. They continued to go to the Bronze even though it was apparently like Studio 54 for vamps. She was just walking by a fresh grave when a pair of hands clawed out of it.  
  
"Oh, I so do not have time for this," Buffy whispered. She glanced up and sighted the vamp she was following. She grumbled to herself and reached down a hand to help the vampire up out of his grave. If she was going to stay on the stalker track she needed to get this done fast.  
  
"Wow, thanks. Not real sure how I got there but man am I hungry," the newbie vamp said as he brushed dirt off his burial suit.  
  
"No problem and I'm really sorry but I'm kind of trying to follow this guy," Buffy said as she plunged her stake into the newbie's chest.  
  
"What? O-"the newbie was cut off as he dusted.  
  
Buffy looked around the now empty cemetery. "Crap," she muttered and took off at a run trying to catch a glimpse of the stalkie again.  
  
*  
  
The next morning Buffy sat on the table in the library swinging her legs. She let out a jaw cracking yawn. "You know, not fair I have to be here earlier then anyone else. I don't think you appreciate my plight Giles. I'm here before the nerds," Buffy said.  
  
Giles regarded the girl carefully. She had a natural ability far beyond what he'd ever read or seen but she also had a complete disregard for her duty, something that was his job to remedy. "Buffy, I know having a destiny is a great strain on your social life but really if the council seers had done their job properly you would have been taken from your parents at a young age and I would have raised you. A school life and social life would not have been an issue as it is we have a lot of lost time to try and gain. If you would get serious about your job it would make mine much easier."  
  
"Geez, and just when I think life has reached ultimate suckage," Buffy grumbled. "I'm here, Giles what more do you want?" She struggled not to raise her voice.  
  
"What I want is a slayer that realizes what her duty is and takes it as seriously as it should be. We live on a Hellmouth. You have a responsibility to save the world and the citizens of Sunnydale, however oblivious they may be. I'd say that ranks a bit higher on the priority scale then your sleep or your social standing in this school," Giles took his glasses off and cleaned them with his shirt as he fought to regain his composure.  
  
Buffy blinked back tears. She would not let him see her cry. "Yeah, okay, sacred duty. I get it, it sucks beyond belief but I get. So I trailed a vamp last night from the Bronze. I lost him in the cemetery when I had to stake a newbie. He just disappeared. He was out in the open and then he was gone."  
  
"You think he apparated?" Giles asked.  
  
"Appa-what?" Buffy said.  
  
"Used majick to teleport somewhere else," Giles tried to explain in words this American teenager would understand.  
  
"Oh, I don't think so. I mean maybe but they don't do that very often do they?" Buffy said.  
  
"No, teleportation is a very powerful spell used only by skilled sorcerers. It's not likely," Giles said.  
  
"Then why did you ask? Is this a slayer quiz because contrary to popular belief I did not just grow smarter in the last five minutes. I don't know your answers now and it's highly unlikely I ever will," Buffy snapped.  
  
Giles sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He knew being a watcher to an active slayer would be difficult but he had no idea. "You say you were in the cemetery when it happened. Were you close to the gates or any place that the vampire might have gone?"  
  
"No, well close to some crypts but I checked them out. He wasn't there," Buffy said.  
  
"Alright, perhaps after school you and I will visit the cemetery and see if we can ascertain where the vampire might have gone by the light of day," Giles said.  
  
"Oh boy, I can't wait," Buffy grumbled. Giles shot her a look. "No need to say it, I'm Serious Buffy who is now going to Serious English class," Buffy swept up her book back and trudged out of the library.  
  
Giles and Buffy walked through the cemetery in the bright Southern California sun. There was only one more crypt to look in. The others hadn't had any exits other then the obvious one. Buffy ducked into the darkness and paused a moment, giving her eyes time to adjust. Giles was right behind her. He turned on the high powered flashlight he carried.  
  
The flashlight played over the floor. After a bit of shuffling around in the dust, the light played on a seam in the floor that didn't match up. Buffy crouched while Giles held the flashlight steady. She played her fingers over the seam and found a notch. She lifted up on the notch and a large square of the floor came loose, revealing a passage downward. Buffy held out her hand for the flashlight. Giles slapped it into her palm.  
  
"Okay, I'm going to go down and check it out. You go wait outside in the sunlight. I'll be right back," Buffy said as she jumped down the hole in the floor.  
  
"Do be careful," Giles said.  
  
"Don't worry, if I'm not you'll get another one," Buffy whispered to herself. She tread silently along the sewer tunnels. The evil creeped and crawled over her skin like a thousand insects and she shivered with it. She pulled her stake out of the back of her waistband and held it ready. She didn't exactly expect to find anything but when evil was a palatable thing in the air, it was a good policy to be ready.  
  
Buffy stepped through a tunnel. She could hear the echo of soft voices and see the flicker of candlelight on the far wall just around a corner. She knew what lay around the corner and she also knew she had better get out of there into the first patch of daylight she could find.  
  
Buffy turned and ran, not caring that they heard her, not caring about anything but making it out of that lair alive. She scrambled up the first ladder leading to the surface she could find. She could hear the vamps behind her. They gave up the chase when she pushed aside the manhole cover and drenched herself in a shaft of sunlight. Buffy ran all the way back to the graveyard. Giles looked up alarmed as he saw her running toward him.  
  
"Good Lord, Buffy what happened?" Giles asked.  
  
Buffy held up a hand. She sat back on a tombstone and took some deep breaths. She was pale and shaky. "I found it, the Master's lair."  
  
"Are you quite alright?" Giles asked.  
  
"Yes, I'm fine. He-it just gave me the wiggins. I know where it is though," Buffy said.  
  
"Very well then, I'm going to return to do some research and we'll formulate a plan when I know something," Giles said.  
  
"I'm going to go home and do the dutiful daughter thing. Oh and that homework stuff they keep telling me I have to do to pass," Buffy said with a tired sigh.  
  
"Don't forget patrol," Giles said as he walked off.  
  
"Nah, don't worry, just pile it all on. I can take it. I'm the slayer," Buffy said to his retreating back.  
  
She sat, watching Giles disappear from sight. She closed her eyes and sagged against the tombstone. "Sometimes, though, I'm just a girl," she whispered to herself as the tears spilled over and dripped down her cheek.  
  
Buffy walked in the front door and set her book bag down. "Hey, Mom, I'm home," she yelled out.  
  
"In the kitchen, Buffy!"  
  
Buffy walked into the kitchen. Joyce was there finishing up dinner. She smiled. "How was your day?"  
  
Buffy put on the bright, perky Buffy smile and said "It was good."  
  
"No problems at school then?" Joyce asked. She was still leery of Buffy's behavior at school. Burning down a high school gym tended to do that to parents.  
  
"Nope, nada, sufficiently boring and normal," Buffy said. "What's for dinner?"  
  
"Chicken casserole," Joyce answered.  
  
"Yum," Buffy said even though she wasn't remotely hungry. "How's the gallery going?"  
  
"It's good. You wouldn't believe how much work a small place like that takes though," Joyce pulled the casserole out of the oven and carried it to the table. Buffy followed her with plates and silverware. They sat down and filled their plates.  
  
"Buffy, Mr. Deans called me today. He said you were dallying in history," Joyce said.  
  
Buffy pushed some food around on her plate and shrugged. "I'm trying; I mean you know history has always been one of my weak points. I'm trying to get in extra study time with Willow."  
  
"I know you're trying. You've been spending so much time at the library since we moved here and I'm proud of you, Buffy. You need to try just a little harder and I'm sure you'll do fine," Joyce said.  
  
Buffy nodded brightly and pushed some more food around on her plate. She kept her eyes down on her food. If she looked up at her mom the dam was going to break and she would start blubbering about slaying and school and secrets being too much to handle and she was just a girl, a sixteen year old girl who couldn't share the oogly booglys of her life with anybody. She had face all the things that go bump in the night completely alone. It was beginning to get to her and she understood why slayers didn't live very long. It wasn't the vamps or the demons that killed them, it was the living.  
  
The rest of dinner was silent. When Joyce got up, Buffy followed her, carrying a mostly full plate.  
  
"I'm gonna go study with Willow," Buffy said.  
  
"Alright honey, I'm so glad you're trying to make a go of it here. Are you sure you're alright? You didn't eat much dinner," Joyce said.  
  
"Yeah, I'm just-not hungry. I'll see you later, don't wait up," Buffy dashed out of the house snagging up her book bag as she went. She deposited the book bag in the bushes next to the house and pulled her stake out of her pocket. Once she was out of sight of the house she slowed her dash to a meandering walk. If a girl had to be out in the night at least she could enjoy the air.  
  
Buffy ducked into an alley near the Bronze. She was surprised to find apartments here, some of them subterranean. She wrinkled her nose. It was an odd place to live. This place held that strange feeling of déjà vu she'd been experiencing ever since coming to Sunnydale, like she ought to know this place. She paused in front of a door and laid her hand, palm down, on it. She rested her forehead against the door and closed her eyes. Tears rushed in hot and fresh. This place felt real and familiar and so much like home it made her ache inside. She slid down the door, sobs racking her body.  
  
She didn't know how long she sat there before the door opened. She jumped back and to her feet, humiliated. She glanced up at the middle aged man with the balding head and beer gut. He stared at her with watery, bloodshot blue eyes.  
  
"You okay, Girly?" He asked.  
  
Buffy smiled slightly, embarrassed. "Yeah, sorry, I-someone-someone I miss used to live here," she struggled to come up with a reason that sounded convincing.  
  
The man looked at her oddly and shook his head. He shut the door almost in her face. Buffy wiped her face with the sleeves of her light weight sweater and sniffled. It was odd but for some reason the lie she'd told the man rang true to her, even though she knew she had never known anyone in Sunnydale before she moved here and she'd never known anyone who lived in this apartment and you certainly couldn't miss someone you'd never met.  
  
Buffy wrapped her fingers around her stake and continued her patrol, making her way to Weatherly Park, a popular hangout for teenagers and there for vamps.  
  
As luck would have it, there were no vamps out on the one night she needed something to pummel so she took it out on an innocent tree. She pummeled until sweat beaded on her skin and her breath came in harsh, sucking gasps. When she finally stepped back from the tree, her knuckles were cut and bleeding from the rough bark and she didn't feel any better.  
  
"Stressed?" a voice came from the shadows.  
  
Buffy jumped and whirled in the direction of the voice, stake at hand, raised and ready.  
  
"Whoa, you can put that down. I came to help," a girl stepped from the shadows. She had black hair and heavy makeup. She was dressed in leather and jeans. There were numerous piercings and that was just on her face.  
  
Buffy arched an eyebrow at her, "Help?"  
  
"Yeah, you're new to Sunnydale High, aren't you?" the girl asked.  
  
"I've been here a few weeks but yeah, kind of," Buffy said still tense and wary.  
  
"I'm Sheila," the girl thumbed a cigarette out of the pack and lit it. "You want one? Help you relax."  
  
Buffy laughed and it was a bitter, echoing sound. "Sure, why not? Gonna die young anyway, can't hurt."  
  
"I hear you, live fast, die young," Sheila slipped a lighter from her pocket. She offered the cigarette pack to Buffy. Buffy slid one out of the package and let Shelia light it.  
  
"You were doing some serious damage to that tree," Sheila said. She sounded appreciative.  
  
"I've-got some issues to work out, I guess," Buffy said.  
  
Sheila snorted and sucked on the cigarette. "Don't we all."  
  
Buffy mimicked Sheila's actions, inhaling deeply on the cigarette. She bent over double coughing.  
  
"Easy there, Tiger. Shallow puffs for awhile, 'til you get used to it," Shelia pounded her on the back. She turned and walked back toward the shadows. She paused and turned to Buffy. "You coming?"  
  
Buffy shrugged. Why the hell not? It wasn't like the vamps were rampaging tonight anyway and Sheila didn't pretend it was a bright happy world. She had issues too, probably not the same issues Buffy did but issues were issues and knowing someone else was dealing somehow comforted her.  
  
Back in the shadows of the trees, Sheila was sitting on the ground. Buffy glanced around her. "You know, this a prime hunting spot for va- vicious muggers. You really should be careful," Buffy said.  
  
"I saw you pummeling that tree, looked like you could take care of yourself and I know I can. Want a beer?" Sheila held aloft four cans of beer tied together with the little plastic rings. "Tastes like piss but it helps the pain go away," Sheila promised.  
  
Buffy grabbed one and popped the top on it. She chugged the bitter, luke warm liquid. She'd had beer a time or two in LA and she didn't care for it, but enough of it and Sheila was right, all the pain would go away.  
  
"So why you being so nice to me?" Buffy asked after she'd emptied the beer and started on a second.  
  
Sheila shrugged. "I've seen you at school. You look like Miss Priss but you don't fit in. You're tryin but it's like the square peg and the round hole. It's interesting. Don't know why the hell you wanna fit in with those losers," she said as she blew a ring of smoke in the air.  
  
Buffy shrugged.  
  
"Ain't never gonna happen. There's girls like that and then there's girls that aren't like that. We may not be two of a kind, but we ain't never gonna be Cordelia Chase or Harmony Kendall. We'll always be outcasts, Buffy. We'll always be alone," Sheila sounded hard, bitter and much older then her sixteen years.  
  
Buffy took a swig of beer and puffed on her cigarette. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I should just stop trying to be a normal girl. I won't ever be one, no matter how hard I try."  
  
Sheila nodded and fell quiet. Buffy blew smoke in the air and watched it drift away on the wind. This is where she belonged, in the darkness with all the other freaks. She was surprised to find it wasn't as bad as she thought it would be, but then that could be the beer talking. 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four  
  
Buffy woke up with a hell of a hangover the next morning. Once they'd killed the beer Sheila had brought they'd started on a bottle of Johnny Red. Buffy had stumbled home around three in the morning and had been sorely tempted to just lay down in the yard outside rather then climb the tree outside her window. She knew she'd be busted and grounded if she did that though.  
  
The alarm went off again at ear busting volume. Buffy slammed the alarm hard and it shattered into little more then plastic and wires.  
  
"Shit," she grumbled and pulled the pillow over her head to block out the weak light that filtered through the blinds.  
  
"Buffy, you better get up if you're going to make it to school on time," her mom yelled up the stairs.  
  
Buffy groaned and rolled out of bed. The world spun as her feet hit the floor and it occurred to her maybe this hadn't been such a good idea. She felt better after a hot shower but not much. She had to remember to grab her book bag out of the bushes on her way to school. She'd forgotten it when she'd come in last night.  
  
Buffy walked up to the school. She was late for her meeting with Giles and she felt like crap. She trudged into the library and tossed her book bag on the table. She winced as it hit the hard surface. Giles looked up from his text.  
  
"You're late," he said.  
  
Buffy groaned. "Not feeling like a lecture today, Giles. I patrolled last night there was nothing out. Let's leave it at that."  
  
"You're ill?" Giles asked. He looked at her rather alarmed.  
  
Buffy felt a guilty blush creep up her neck. "It's nothing. I'll be better by the afternoon I'm sure, just kind of didn't get enough sleep icky feeling. I'll be at full slayer strength by patrol time I'm sure."  
  
"If you're ill perhaps you should take a night off, get some rest," Giles suggested.  
  
Buffy shook her head. "I'll be fine, I'm sure but thanks."  
  
"Of course, I can't have you out there when you're not at 100 percent. It's not efficient," Giles said.  
  
"And we'd hate to be inefficient. God forbid you actually care that I'm sick," Buffy snapped.  
  
"Of course I care, I just-I must think about your duties-"Giles stammered.  
  
"Don't worry about it. I get it. I gotta go to class," Buffy grumped and picked up her back pack. "I think I will forgo the training session after school, get some of that rest and relaxation before patrol."  
  
"Of course," Giles said but Buffy was already gone.  
  
By lunchtime Buffy was feeling much better maybe Slayer healing also had the added benefit of quick to get rid of hangovers, Buffy thought. She was sitting with Willow and Xander at lunch when Sheila came up and tapped her on the shoulder. She jerked her head toward the quad outside and started to walk that way.  
  
"Hey guys, I'll be back in just a minute. Shelia wants to talk to me about something," Buffy said pushing her chair back.  
  
"Kay," Willow said.  
  
"I really hope it's not piercings," Xander said.  
  
Buffy grinned and walked out to the quad. Shelia was leaning up against a tree on the far edge away from everyone.  
  
"Hey," Buffy said walking up.  
  
"Hey, how you feeling this morning, Tinkerbell?" Sheila asked.  
  
Buffy shrugged. "I've been better," she confessed.  
  
Sheila nodded and dug a joint out of her pocket. She looked around and lit it. She passed it to Buffy, "It'll make you feel better."  
  
Buffy chewed on her bottom lip. "I don't know,"  
  
Sheila shrugged, "Your business then. There's a party tonight at 1100 Oak if you want to come. I'm gonna be there, along with some of my friends."  
  
"I gotta do pa-uhm parental stuff," Buffy said.  
  
Sheila nodded. "That's a drag. It'll last most the night if you get out of the parental stuff early. My boyfriend's got a friend that would be totally psyched to meet you."  
  
Buffy pondered what Sheila had said. If Sheila was any indication of the rest of her friends, they might not be able to take a vamp but they wouldn't be bait like Owen either. Maybe she could actually have a boyfriend and slay. "I'll think about it, after Mom goes to bed," Buffy said.  
  
Sheila grinned and took a puff off her joint. "Cool, see you later then." She turned and started walking off the campus.  
  
"Uhm Sheila, few more hours of school..." Buffy trailed off.  
  
"Hell no, I'm going to sleep this shit off. See you tonight," Sheila waved.  
  
Buffy contemplated taking a cue from Sheila and skipping the afternoon. Joyce wouldn't be home until much later. Buffy sighed. If she skipped Giles would know and he'd be all over her, not because he cared that she went to school but because it was irresponsible and it would get her grounded and then she wouldn't be able to patrol and didn't she know she had to save the world.  
  
Buffy slumped back down in her chair beside Willow and Xander.  
  
"So what did freak girl want?" Xander asked.  
  
Buffy glared at him. "Don't call her that. She's not a freak."  
  
Xander held his hands up in surrender. "Sorry, didn't know you two were close personal friends."  
  
"It's-we're not but- I don't know. She's dealing with some stuff and she could use someone to talk to sometimes," Buffy said. Besides she understands how life can suck so much it hurts Buffy thought.  
  
*  
  
Buffy walked through the cemetery. She had worn a pair of faded, low rise jeans and a cute tank in case she decided to go to Sheila's party later. She pulled her baby blue vinyl jacket closer. The cemetery had a marginally eerie feel to it tonight. A shiver went up her spine and the breeze whirled around her. She caught a whiff of leather and outdoors and another unique and wonderful smell. She took a deep breath and smiled. A feeling of safety and love settled around her and Buffy wallowed in it. Safety and love hadn't actually been in abundance since the slayer gig started. Buffy closed her eyes and continued walked. She giggled, drunk on the feeling.  
  
She stopped in front of a crypt. "Angel," she whispered and opened her eyes. She cast her glance up and her eyes swept over a marble statue of an angel. The moonlight made the marble glow and it seemed almost alive. The angel knelt on top of the crypt, one hand out stretched. One wing was perfect and towered at least twice the height of the kneeling angel. The other wing lay at his feet on top of the crypt, shattered.  
  
Buffy stood on the bench and brushed her fingers against the outstretched hand of the marble angel. "Poor broken angel," she whispered. "I guess we're all broken in some way, it's just not always visible."  
  
Buffy hopped on top of the crypt and sat down amid the shattered remains of the angel's wing. She glanced up at the profile of the angel. It was definitely a masculine angel. "I bet you've seen a lot of things in all the years you've been here. You've probably watched me dust some of the vamps. Maybe you even watched other slayers dust vamps. I figured it out you know? It's not the vamps or the demons or the apocalypses that kill slayers. It's living. We're expected to save the world and everyone's life but we're not allowed to have lives ourselves. We're not allowed to be part of the world we're saving. "  
  
Buffy sighed and leaned up against the marble angel. She had expected the marble to be colder and harder but somehow it was comfortable. There was a little niche where his wing had broken off that seemed carved to fit her body.  
  
"And you know why we follow all these rules? Because some stuffy old guys in England say we have too. I mean I get it, I guess, the alone thing anyway. I mean if Will or Xander were to go with me on patrol or even knew about my secret life, they'd be in danger, as if living on the Hellmouth isn't dangerous enough. People actually raise kids here. Anyway, so I get it. It's just so lonely and so hard and there's no one to talk too. Giles is so British I think he'd go into cardiac arrest if I mentioned having trouble dealing with the destiny. And I'm tired and I'm lonely and God I just want to feel like a normal girl for a little while, barring that numb would be good." Buffy glanced up at the angel and smiled. "And now I'm insano girl talking to statues. Speaking of numb I'm gonna go get numb. Thanks for the talk Angel, I'll be back," Buffy said as she hopped down to the ground.  
  
The music blared out of a garage apartment behind a shabby little house on Oak Street. Buffy checked the address again. 1100 Oak, she nodded and walked back toward the garage apartment. She paused at the door and almost turned around to go home but she knew what waited there. Her mom would still be awake at this hour and she'd be in for more of the "Let's pretend Happy Daughter" routine. She was already pulling the perfect slayer gig, she really couldn't handle both so she knocked on the door.  
  
She wasn't sure anyone had heard her at first. Then the door flew open and she was left staring up at a tall, gangly guy with black hair and an eyebrow ring.  
  
"Whoa," he uttered looking down at Buffy.  
  
"Uhm, I'm Buffy, I-uh-"Buffy stared.  
  
"I invited her, Derek. She's cool," Sheila said from somewhere deeper in the apartment.  
  
Derek stepped aside and let Buffy in. The place reeked of pot and beer. It was crammed with people. Buffy tugged on her black tank. Suddenly she felt like she really didn't fit in.  
  
"You look fine. Don't let all the leather scare you," a deep voice said behind her.  
  
Buffy whirled on her heel and nearly collided with a broad chest clad in a white wife beater tank and torn jeans. She raised her eyes and looked up into a pair of twinkling blue eyes. He had sandy blond hair that was a little too long and sleep mussed. He had a small silver eyebrow ring but other then that he appeared piercing free. He stuck out a hand.  
  
Buffy shook his hand and managed to stutter out, "Hi, I'm Buffy."  
  
"I'm Brandon. Sheila told me you might be stopping by," he said.  
  
"Oh, God, I hope I'm up to the pressure," Buffy said.  
  
Brandon laughed. "No pressure. You want something to drink? We've got beer and someone opened up a bottle of tequila in the kitchen."  
  
"I'll-uhm-I'll have whatever your having," Buffy said.  
  
Brandon grinned and handed her a cold bottle of beer. Buffy took a swig and squashed the little voice inside of her that sounded like Giles.  
  
Brandon was funny and laid-back almost to the point of comatose. He made everyone around him relax a notch or two merely because of his attitude. Buffy was having fun she was surprised to find.  
  
"Alright, everyone in here, the tequila shots will commence," Derek yelled.  
  
Buffy laughed as Brandon stood and offered his hand. He pulled her to her feet and dragged her into the kitchen.  
  
"I've never done tequila shots before," Buffy confessed in a whisper to him.  
  
"First time for everything," Brandon said with a wink.  
  
Everyone took their shots like pros. She watched as they sprinkled salt on their wrists and held a lime in the same hand. They licked the salt, shot the tequila and bit the lime. Buffy gulped when the shot glass was passed around to her, filled with golden liquid. She took it and glanced at Brandon with nervous eyes. He grinned at her.  
  
"Just toss it back, try to get it past your tongue," he advised.  
  
She licked her salt-covered wrist nervously and then tossed the glass back. She made a face. It burned going down and made her mouth tingle. She bite into the lime and sucked on it. That prompted another face.  
  
Brandon leaned over and whispered in her ear, "You make the cutest faces."  
  
Buffy stuck her tongue out at him and he laughed. She liked the sound of his laugh.  
  
She lost count of the number of tequila shots they'd done. They'd moved into the living room and she was half lying on the couch, half on Brandon. She giggled and looked up at him. She clacked her teeth together and whispered "I can't feel my teeth."  
  
He grinned at her. "Can you normally?"  
  
"Well, when I do this I can," she clacked her teeth together again to demonstrate.  
  
He chuckled. "Maybe that's enough tequila for you tonight."  
  
Buffy pouted.  
  
"God, you have the most adorable pout," Brandon said and touched his finger to her lips, "definitely no more tequila for you tonight."  
  
"Oh, God what time is it?" Buffy asked.  
  
Brandon glanced up at the clock. "Five AM"  
  
Buffy sat up and then swayed. "I gotta get home."  
  
"I'll walk you. Let me just tell Sheila and Derek I'm going," Brandon said.  
  
Buffy nodded and went to stand by the door. She ended up leaning against the wall because the world refused to quit tilting on its side. She grinned to herself. She felt numb and tingly and perfect. There was no pain, no hurt and the big piece of her that was missing was filled up with numby, tingly goodness. She decided drunk and tequila was nice.  
  
Brandon emerged from the other room and held out his hand. Buffy took it and they walked back to her house. Or rather he walked, she mostly leaned, staggered and practically let him carry her. The cool night hair helped steady her but she was pleasantly surprised to find it didn't take away the numb, tingly feeling she liked so much.  
  
"Right here," Buffy said when they reached her house. She turned to Brandon, "I had a lot of fun tonight, tell Sheila thanks and you know for once in a long time I felt like a real girl instead of a superhero."  
  
Brandon chuckled. "That's the first time I've ever heard that. Usually tequila turns you into a super hero, not the other way around."  
  
"I'm not like normal girls," Buffy said.  
  
"I'm beginning to see that," Brandon said.  
  
He watched with amused interest as Buffy climbed the oak tree in front of her house amid many curses. He waited until she stood in the window and waved down at him.  
  
Buffy fell into bed and closed her eyes. She knew she was going to pay for this in the morning but right now she didn't care. She wondered briefly if she could spend the rest of her existence feeling like this. It'd make the slaying easier. Her mind shifted to Brandon. He was nice. He won't survive more then twenty four hours in my world. He's not Angel she thought and then drifted off to sleep. 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five  
  
Buffy scrubbed her hands over her face. "Ok, let me get this straight. I've got to worry about the Master, the oldest vampire in recorded history, and an invisible girl who wants to off random people in school?" Buffy said looked up at Giles.  
  
"That is correct," Giles said.  
  
Buffy grumbled and lay down on the table. She really wasn't feeling up to this. She'd gone by Derek's house last night and drank too much beer with Brandon, Sheila and Derek. Derek had been sniffing PCP. She'd caved in after a few beers and done a little bit. She'd only thought tequila chased away the slayerness of her life. PCP blasted it into next week. "How the hell am I supposed to fight an invisible girl, Giles?"  
  
"I believe you might actually have to learn to listen," Giles said with a hint of amusement in his voice.  
  
"Oh bite me. Did anyone even ask me if I feel like listening?" Buffy grumbled and sat up. "Okay so, tonight Cordy and all her groupies are doing some decorating for the prom queen junk. I really had other things to do," like see Brandon, Jose Cuervo and Angel dust "but I can come up here and stay with Cordelia, make sure things run smoothly and maybe catch Marcie all at the same time. Although, Cordelia is the victim here, are we sure we want to save her?" Buffy asked.  
  
That earned her a glare from Giles.  
  
Buffy sighed. "Okay I know Serious Buffy, I'm on it Giles, relax with the glares your face will freeze like that."  
  
*  
  
Buffy watched as the agents took away Marcie. It looked odd. They were holding onto something no one could see. Buffy shook her head and looked up at Giles. "So, invisible girl taken care of, can I go now?"  
  
Giles sighed. Buffy insisted on having a social life. She refused to see the importance of the Master and what it meant to her, Sunnydale and even the world. "I suppose so, but the council just sent me a volume I want to pursue and discuss with you. It's the Codex and the most accurate text we have on prophecies. I found a reference to it and the Master in another book."  
  
"Promise, I'll come pursue and discuss dusty old books with you," Buffy placed her hand over her heart and smiled at Giles. She glanced around. Her skin was itchy and she needed a shot of tequila or three right about now. She waggled her fingers at Giles and dashed off toward Derek's house. If she hurried she'd get there before the party really started.  
  
*  
  
Buffy woke up to the phone ringing in her ear. It was Saturday morning and her mom was already at the gallery. Buffy groaned and pulled the pillow over her head. There were a thousand little Chinese men in her head doing karate kicks. Demons were playing tug o' war with her stomach and she was pretty sure someone was spinning the earth. The phone continued to shrill. She grabbed it convinced anything would be better then that noise in her sound sensitive head.  
  
"Hello," she groaned.  
  
"Buffy, it's Giles. I wonder if perhaps you could come up to the library."  
  
Buffy groaned again and squeezed her eyes shut. "Giles can it wait?"  
  
"I'm sorry, Buffy. It really can not," Giles said.  
  
"Okay, give me a few. I'll be right up there," Buffy hung up the phone and got out of bed. Her stomach flipped and she stood stock still and tried to take deep breaths. Once it passed she got into the shower and soothed the Chinese men doing the karate kicks in her head. She got out and twisted her wet hair into a messy bun. She pulled on a tank top and a pair of loose cargo khakis. She jammed her feet into flip flops and added the darkest pair of sunglasses she could find.  
  
It was a short and torturous walk to the library. By the time she got there the Chinese men had returned in full force along with the tug of war demons. She stopped and got a cold cola out of the soda machine, hoping the caffeine would chase away some of the side affects of Jose and PCP mixed. Angel dust, Buffy thought. Derek had told her it was also called angel dust. She smiled and her marble angel from the cemetery came to mind. She went and talked to him almost every night after patrols and before she went to Derek's.  
  
Buffy pushed the doors to the library open and walked in. Giles stood before the table with his head bowed. He had his glasses off and he rubbed at the bridge of his nose. He looked worn out and exhausted. Buffy frowned and walked over to him.  
  
"Giles, what's up? You look upset," she said.  
  
"If you would sit down," Giles said.  
  
Buffy cast him a look but curled up in a chair, "Okay so what's the dire?"  
  
"Last night sometime there was an accident apparently. I suspect Marcie had something to do with it," Giles said.  
  
Buffy swallowed hard and placed her hand over her lurching stomach.  
  
"This morning the janitor found Willow and Xander in the basement. The door was locked from the outside and the gas had been turned on," Giles said softly.  
  
"But they're okay? I mean they're at the hospital and they'll have to stay awhile but they're okay, right?" Buffy gripped the arms of the chair hard to keep from sliding out of it onto the floor.  
  
"Buffy, they-they were there all night with the gas on. I'm afraid- I'm afraid they're both dead," Giles said.  
  
"No!" Buffy shouted and stood up quickly. A wave of dizziness overcame her and she fell to her knees and threw up the contents left over in her stomach from the night before.  
  
"Buffy, I am truly sorry. I know you three were close," Giles said and paced uncomfortably.  
  
"They-why-what were they doing here?" Buffy finally found the voice to ask.  
  
"Studying, I was in the office reading the Codex and didn't even notice when they left. I'm terribly sorry-if I had-"Giles stopped.  
  
Buffy swallowed her tears. She shook her head, "No, I'm the slayer. I should have stopped it. I could have-I should have stopped her," she said dejectedly.  
  
"Buffy, you were protecting Cordelia. She was the only one we thought Marcie was going after. I had no idea, you had no idea she would hurt Xander or Willow," Giles said.  
  
Buffy shook her head. The walls were closing in on her. She couldn't breathe and she had to get out of her. "I've got to go, I-I've got to go," Buffy ran out of the library.  
  
She found her self in the cemetery. She crawled on top of the crypt with her angel and curled herself into the niche left by his broken wing. As soon as she was there the flood of tears started. She sobbed and yelled. The marble angel watched her with immeasurably sad eyes. The sunlight gave the marble warmth that she wasn't used to feeling and it was comforting. Somehow it made him seem a little more like her Angel and she wondered briefly when she had started thinking of this angel as hers and with a capital A and why. She swiped at her face with the backs of her hands. She laughed bitterly. She needed real arms around her not the imaginary marble arms of some fictional Angel she'd made up. She jumped from the top of the crypt and gave her Angel one last glance and then ran to Derek and Brandon's house.  
  
She pounded on the door until Derek answered. It was obvious she'd woken him up. She looked up at him with blood shot, red rimmed eyes.  
  
"Is Brandon here?" She asked.  
  
"Yeah, but he's asleep in his room. I'll go get him," Derek started to turn.  
  
Buffy stopped him with a hand on his arm and shook her head. "Don't. I'll just go in," she said.  
  
She pushed past Derek into the apartment and then stood there like an idiot. She'd never been to Brandon's bedroom. She had an idea of which door it was but didn't know. Derek just pointed to a door and Buffy tried to smile at him. The smile never made it past her broken heart.  
  
Buffy opened the door and slipped inside the room. She paused a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. Brandon had put aluminum foil over the windows so that the room was pitched into almost total darkness at any given time.  
  
The room was fairly neat, for a guy's room. Brandon was sprawled out on his stomach, blankets twisted and thrown all over the bed. He roused a little and glanced up when he heard the door shut. He sat up sleepily, pulling the sheets and blankets to his waist.  
  
"Buffy?" He asked.  
  
With that one word she fled to him. She scrambled in his lap and clung to him like a life preserver. Brandon's arms went around her. Her body was already trembling with tears and he could feel the wetness gathering on his bare chest.  
  
"Oh, God, Babe, what happened?" Brandon asked. His voice was still rough and husky with sleep.  
  
She shook her head against his chest and continued to cry. He stroked her hair and made shushing noises. He wasn't exactly good with crying women but this was Buffy and he was strongly beginning to suspect he was in love with her. It was almost impossible not to be. She was like a little girl lost most of the time, so scared and so defensive about everything that it made you want to protect her, shield her from whatever it was that haunted her. Occasionally you'd get a glimpse of her smile, of the person she might be or could have been and it was everything you could do not to promise her the world if only she'd smile like that one more time.  
  
After a time, Buffy looked up at him, hazel eyes glistened with tears and somehow she managed to make red and swollen beautiful. She was a broken girl and he wanted to fix her no matter what that meant. He smoothed strands of hair wet from her tears back from her face and placed a kiss on her forehead. He didn't ask what was wrong. He and Buffy had an agreement. He didn't push her to talk about anything she didn't want to and she didn't leave. Her lower lip trembled and Brandon was suddenly very aware that he was naked under the blankets.  
  
"Hold on a sec, Babe. I'm gonna put on some shorts," he started to slide away from her and she grabbed his arm with her surprising strength. She'd always been careful to shield him from her strength.  
  
"No, don't," she said pulling him closer to her. She pushed him back into the sheets. "Make me feel alive, Brandon. Do you know how long it's been since I felt alive?" 


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six  
  
Buffy murmured in her sleep and curled up against the body in bed with her. A small smile graced her lips and she whispered "Angel." Brandon ran his fingers along her cheekbone.  
  
"Nope, you're definitely the angel in this room," he whispered.  
  
Buffy's eyes snapped open for a moment she couldn't remember why the man next to her was blond instead of pale and dark then recollection came rushing back in. Tears gathered in the back of her throat as she remembered Willow and Xander. The vision of the beautiful pale man faded like a dream. She sat up and scrubbed her hands through her hair. Brandon lazily ran his hand along her bare back.  
  
"I've gotta go. Giles wanted me to check in with him about some books," Buffy said. She had told Brandon that she worked for Giles in the library sometimes. It was a necessary lie to cover up all the time she spent there with him.  
  
Brandon smiled lazily and captured her hand in his. He kissed the knuckles of her hand and looked up at her with impossibly blue eyes. "Will I see you tonight?"  
  
Buffy bent over and drug her fingers across his lips. "Yeah, I need you. You-you keep me here," she whispered.  
  
He looked at her a bit confused and then grinned. Buffy amazed him. He never understood her. The girl was a constant mystery. She slid naked out of his bed, a sight he appreciated and was still a bit in shock over, and slipped on the clothes she'd worn over here. She twisted her hair up a little tighter and gave him one last sorrowful look.  
  
"You have the saddest eyes I've ever seen," he said.  
  
She just smiled a little and said "You should see my Angel." She shook her head a little and then laughed at herself. "Never mind, it's- there's this statue in the cemetery. He looks so sad, mournful," she tried to explain and then shook her head. She didn't understand herself. "I'll be back later," she slipped out of the room and let herself out of the apartment.  
  
Buffy ran to the library. She was afraid if she didn't get away fast she'd retreat back into that cool, dark world that Brandon waited in. She slipped silently through the doors. The air was thick with the kind of quiet only a library seemed to be able to maintain.  
  
Buffy hugged herself and walked past the desk to the table. Giles was in his office on the phone. The door was half closed. She curled up in a chair and waited. She guess she sort of did intend on eavesdropping but she knew Giles and she knew it was likely whoever he was speaking too the subject had something to do with her or the new power rising in Sunnydale.  
  
"Yes, I understand but I am curious if there are any instances of the Codex not ever coming true," Giles said.  
  
There was a long pause and Giles nodded. "Of course, in this instance I was rather hoping that was not the case-"He stopped and listened to something the person on the other end of the phone was saying.  
  
Giles sighed after a moment and said, "Of course, I'll make a full report. I was rather hoping I wouldn't have too but if the Codex is correct, and you assure me it is always correct, she will face the Master and she will die. Yes, thank you for your time." He hung up the phone and walked out of the office with his head bowed.  
  
Buffy stood a few feet from the table her mouth agape. Tears glistened in her eyes. Her lower lip trembled. "Were you ever going to tell me?"  
  
Giles took his glasses off and glanced up at her. "Tell you what?"  
  
Buffy laughed bitterly. "I guess not. You were going to let me walk in his lair to my death and not tell me there was some kind of book that predicted it all along."  
  
Giles sighed. "Buffy, I was rather hoping I wouldn't have too. I have hope that you will prove the prophecy wrong."  
  
"Well you know what, I'm going too," Buffy said.  
  
Giles smiled slightly. "That's the spirit. Books have been wrong before, not this particular prophecy but on occasion-"  
  
"I'm going too, because I'm not going to fight him," Buffy clarified.  
  
"Buffy, you must fight the Master. If you don't he will rise and slaughter the entire town of Sunnydale. He will then move on to the next town and the next," Giles said.  
  
"So find someone else to fight him. I quit," Buffy said.  
  
"This is your destiny. You can't just quit," Giles argued.  
  
"Wanna bet? Just watch me," Buffy paused and took a deep breath. She tried to chase away the tears collecting in her throat and her eyes. She sniffed and shook her head. "I'm sixteen years old, Giles. I don't want to die," her voice sounded broken and very, very small.  
  
Giles looked down. He had nothing to say for that. He finally spoke, "Buffy, you must fight the Master. If you don't all these people-"  
  
"Need to find a new home. I quit, Giles. You speak like a thousand languages, surely you understand this one. I quit," Buffy whirled and ran out of the room, sobs ripping themselves from her throat before she got out the door.  
  
She ran without thought or awareness and was somehow not surprised to find herself crawling on top of the angel crypt. She curled up at his feet and cried, talking to him in hitching sobs. "They want me to die. They're going to send me into the Master's lair knowing I'll die and no one cares. I'm sixteen years old, Angel. There's so much more I want to do in my life. I want to fall in love. I want to go to Prom. I want to graduate. I want to get married and wear the big white dress. I want to leave this horrid little town and never ever come back. I don't want to die, Angel," she sobbed.  
  
Buffy wiped away tears and stood up among the shattered remains of the angel's wing. She reached out a hand and laid it on the cool marble of the statue's face. Her thumb glided over the angel's lips and she sighed. "I'll miss you but I'll never forget, I'll never forget." She took one last look at the frozen, sorrowful angel and leapt off the crypt. She snuck into her room. It was dusk and her mom was still at the gallery getting ready for an art show this weekend.  
  
Buffy threw some things in a small bag and then wrote her mom a note. She left it on the bed. She climbed out her window and tossed her bag down to the ground. She jumped after it and landed in a crouch. She grabbed the bag and slung it over her shoulder. Buffy glanced up at her window and turned her back to it. She walked slowly back to Brandon and Derek's house. She had one more stop before she fought her way out of hell.  
  
She knocked on the door and Brandon answered it. She smiled a weak smile at him as she stepped past him into the apartment.  
  
"Hey," he said as he looked her over, taking in the bag and the red swollen eyes. She'd been crying far too much the last couple of days and had yet to give him any explanation.  
  
Buffy glanced around the house. "Derek here?" She asked.  
  
"Nah he went to pick up Sheila and grab some groceries. You gonna tell me why you've been crying so much the last couple of days?" He asked shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans.  
  
"Later, I promise. I just-I need to get out of here now. There's a bus to LA leaving in a half hour," Buffy said.  
  
"You're leaving me?" Brandon asked.  
  
Buffy shook her head. "I'm leaving Sunnydale, for good. I'm not ever coming back, Brandon."  
  
"Not to intrude but can I come with?" He asked. He looked at her hopefully from under a fringe of sleep mussed blond hair. Buffy reached out and brushed the hair out of his eyes. He looked like a little boy asking permission.  
  
"You sure you want to follow me to LA?"  
  
"I'd follow you anywhere, Buffy. I love you," he confessed.  
  
Buffy glanced away. She bit her bottom lip and paused a moment. "Okay. Does Derek have any angel dust stashed anywhere?"  
  
Brandon nodded. "I'll grab it and toss some clothes in a bag. Give me a second."  
  
Buffy nodded. "Hurry," she said. She could feel the Master's power crawling over her skin. It got heavier and colder as the night got darker. They didn't have much time. Giles would come looking for her. Her mom would be home. She'd find the note and raise the red flag. Then Buffy would have police and a panicked mother to deal with.  
  
Brandon emerged in a few moments with a gym bag over his shoulder. He held up a small baggie with a little bit of white powder in it. "You look like you could use a little of this right now," he said.  
  
She wanted to kiss him. A little angel dust was exactly what she needed. It would chase away the Master's power and make her forget she was running from Death. It would make her forget that Death always caught its victims eventually. Brandon laid a line of the powder out for her on the dirty glass coffee table. Buffy bent over and sniffed it up quickly, urgency, want and need driving her. She wiped her nose and smiled at him. "Thanks,"  
  
He nodded and stood up. He held out his hand and she took it. "Why Los Angeles?" He asked as they walked to the bus station.  
  
She shrugged. "I don't know. It just feels like someone or something is waiting for me there."  
  
Brandon smiled. "I've never been to Los Angeles," he said.  
  
"I lived there once upon a time when I was a different girl," Buffy said. Her voice sounded far away and heavy with things remembered and things just on the edge of remembrance.  
  
At the bus station Buffy paid for their tickets with money she'd taken out of her Mom's rainy day stash.  
  
"You kids just made it. The bus will be pulling out of here in about five minutes," the clerk said as he handed them their tickets.  
  
"Thank you," Buffy said as she turned toward Brandon. He put his arm around her protectively and led her to the bus. They sat in a seat in the back. Buffy curled up into him and gripped handfuls of his shirt with both hands. Brandon placed one of his hands over hers. He was always surprised by how tiny she was. He kissed the crown of her head. Buffy always seemed haunted but tonight there was something else. She was afraid, really and truly afraid of something. He'd never seen Buffy afraid. She shivered with cold. Sometimes the PCP made her cold even on the hottest days. Other times it would make her burn with a fever.  
  
"I promise, I'll take care of you, Buffy," he whispered.  
  
She just nodded. Slow tears dripped down her cheeks as the bus pulled out of Sunnydale. She was sixteen. She didn't want to die. 


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven  
  
A/N: For my purposes the Hyperion does not have a paranoia demon living it nor does it have an old lady from the 50's living in it. However the history is still the same. Angel was still there in the 50's and the events that occurred in the 50's still happened.  
  
Buffy paused on the sidewalk. The world rushed around her and it struck her how much she wasn't a part of it.  
  
"Hey, you okay?" Brandon asked tugging on her hand, tugging her back to the world. She smiled slightly at him, grateful for it. She nodded.  
  
"Just really tired, the last two days...not of the good. I want to get somewhere and get some more stuff. It's too crowded up here," Buffy tapped her temple.  
  
Brandon pulled her close a moment and kissed her temple. The world rushed around them but they remained still at the center of it, like the eye of storm. That's what Brandon was to her, her eye of the storm, the calm center in a world that was beyond crazy, a world that was killing her a little more every day.  
  
"Come on, this way," Buffy said and begin to work her way toward an alley.  
  
She circumvented the alleys and streets as if a thread pulled her along. They had just slipped into another alley when Buffy heard a scuffle up ahead. Dread filled her. She knew what it was.  
  
"Brandon stay here, I'll be right back," Buffy dropped her bag and shot down the alley. She broke off an old wooden chair leg as she ran. She rounded a corner. There was one lone vamp feeding on a girl.  
  
"Good God, its all suck all the time with you guys," Buffy said.  
  
The vamp retracted his fangs and turned with an angry growl. He shoved the girl he'd been feeding off to the ground. She was sobbing and bleeding from the neck but she'd live. The vamp snarled again and charged her. Buffy caught him with a flying roundhouse kick in the chin. The vamp stumbled back but shook it off and rushed her. Buffy flipped the vamp over her shoulder using his own momentum against him. She jumped in for the kill but the vamp was already up. He swung at her and she was already committed. He caught her in the nose. Blood spurted over her lips and chin.  
  
There was a feral scream and out of no where Brandon attacked the vamp. He locked his arms around the vampire's neck from behind and struggled with him.  
  
"Brandon, no!" Buffy yelled.  
  
The vamp slammed him back into the brick wall. Brandon let go and slumped to the ground, all the air knocked out of him.  
  
"That wasn't very nice," Buffy said and smashed the vampire in the solar plexus with a side kick. He slammed up against the wall and Buffy begin pummeling his face and ribs. The demon caught her wrist and twisted. She let out a shriek of pain and ended up flush against the vamp's body, her arm twisted up behind her back. She willed herself to relax. She could see Brandon struggling to his feet a couple of yards away. She tried to catch his eye, tried to tell him not to try anything.  
  
"Get the girl out of here," Buffy shouted at him. That would keep him busy and out of her way for a little while at least. She waited until the vamp lowered his head a little bit to get to her neck.  
  
"Nice little girly girl," the vamp purred.  
  
Buffy slammed her head back into his. He screamed in pain and stumbled back holding his head.  
  
"That's Slayer to you, Fang face," Buffy quipped as she slammed a stake into the vamp's heart. He turned to dust before he could even stop screaming over the pain in his head.  
  
Brandon cocked an eyebrow at her. "Okay, so that was a vampire."  
  
Buffy looked at him surprised. "Yeah, how'd-"  
  
"The rest of Sunnydale may be deeply stupid but even stoned out of my mind I knew what the hell was going on. You notice Derek and I don't go out at night, I don't take short cuts across the park and Derek doesn't conduct business after dark. If it can't be done in the light of day then they don't need it. One question, how the hell did you do that?"  
  
"Come on, let's go in here and get settled. Then we can have story time," Buffy said.  
  
"In here" turned out to be a grand, old, abandoned hotel. Every thing was covered in a thick layer of dust, but even through the dust and grime it was obvious it had once been a show place. Buffy ran her hand over the curved reception desk and plopped down on the funny round couch with a giggle. This place felt right. It felt like hers.  
  
"The Hyperion Hotel," Brandon read from the worn and yellowed guest book on the reception desk.  
  
"I like it," Buffy said.  
  
Brandon looked around. "Kind of spooky this big old place abandoned like this, isn't it?"  
  
Buffy shrugged. "I dunno, it feels...homey."  
  
"The thing is big enough to have wings, Buffy. How can a place this big feel homey?" Brandon asked.  
  
"I don't know. Somehow it feels like mine," Buffy said in a hushed voice. She stood up and swept up the curved staircase. She paused in front of the door to room 217. She traced her fingers over the numbers on the brass plaque. A slight smile graced her lips.  
  
"Brandon, bring the bags up here," Buffy yelled down.  
  
The inside of the room was as dusty as the rest of the hotel. She was pleased to find the water was still on. She washed the blood off her face in the bathroom, swiping a hand across the tarnished and dusty mirror. Her reflection looked shadowed, almost surreal in the dark, antique mirror. She splashed a last handful of cold water over her face and then walked back into the bedroom. Buffy pulled the spread off the bed and shook it out over the balcony that looked down onto an over grown courtyard. She threw open the windows and the balcony doors, letting the fresh, night air in.  
  
"You aren't worried about vampires or whatever getting in here?" Brandon asked as he watched her move around the room. He'd noticed she moved with a grace that few humans possessed. He had always assumed she was just graceful. After seeing her in the alley, he was beginning to wonder.  
  
"Nope, not here, don't you feel it? It feels safe," Buffy said and wrapped her arms around herself.  
  
Brandon shrugged and toed off his boots. He grinned at Buffy and jumped on the bed. She laughed and shrieked. "Come on, Babe," he held his hands out to her. Buffy giggled and took Brandon's hands, allowing him to pull her to her feet on the old mattress. They jumped on the bed like little kids until they both collapsed out of breath from laughing so hard.  
  
Buffy lay propped up on the pillows. Brandon lay with his head on her stomach. He looked up at her and laughing blue eyes suddenly turned very serious. "So, are you going to tell me how you did what you did in the alley? My back is black and blue and you don't have a mark on you," He said.  
  
Buffy bit her bottom lip and sighed. "I didn't want to bring you into this part of my life. You were my tie to the real world, the world that didn't include vampires and demons and other things that go bump in the night."  
  
Brandon was silent. He ran his fingers up and down her forearm, tickling the bend of her elbow.  
  
"You won't think I'm a freak?" Buffy said and it was just a whisper.  
  
He sat up and cradled her face in his hands. "I could never, ever think you were a freak. You're the most amazing person I've ever known."  
  
Buffy smiled sadly at him. Her eyes were unfathomably sad. "Before I tell you, can you get me some stuff? Really crowded up here and I want to chase it all away."  
  
Brandon nodded. He dug around in his bag and came up with a bag of powder and a mirror. He laid out a couple of lines for her and held it up. Buffy sniffed the powder up and closed her eyes, waiting for it to take effect. Brandon set everything on the side table and then lay back down with his head on her stomach.  
  
"I'm a slayer," Buffy said.  
  
"Okay, and I'm a Scorpio," Brandon said.  
  
Buffy smiled slightly. That was what she loved about him. He managed to make her feel completely normal in a world that wasn't at all normal. "Into each generation, a Slayer is born. One girl in all the world, a Chosen One. One born with the strength and skill to hunt the vampires, to stop the spread of evil blah blah blah. You get the point. This generation it's me, just call me Chosen Buffy."  
  
"Thanks, I'll stick with Buffy. What does all that mean?" Brandon asked.  
  
"A lot of things, mostly it means I get to spend all my free time hunting down vampires, demons. It's sort of my destiny, my duty, my calling, and so on and so forth. I'm stronger then any human, I'm faster, I have great aim, I don't throw like a girl, I heal faster, I can take more damage then any human. I can jump higher, all good things except for the fact that I can't tell anyone and I have to fight vampires, demons and other things that go bump in the night. I'm the thing all the vampire mommies threaten their vampire babies with to get them to drink their plasma at night, but I am mortal, I can be killed. I can die," Buffy said.  
  
"Okay, so that sort of explains the vampires in the alley and what you did, which was amazing by the way," Brandon said.  
  
"Yeah, amazing," Buffy sighed.  
  
"What does that have to do with us leaving Sunnydale?" Brandon asked.  
  
Buffy smiled. It was the most questions he'd ever asked her. He deserved answers. He'd been patient and sweet and completely and utterly undemanding. "Willow and Xander were locked in the basement of the school last night by an invisible girl, don't ask. She turned the gas on. They died. There was no one to save them and they died. I was busy watching over Cordelia, which was attacked so valid duty there but still. I should have known. They're my friends, were my friends. I should have protected them," Buffy stopped, the tears in her throat too thick to go on.  
  
"Oh, Baby," Brandon sat up and pulled her into his arms. He stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head.  
  
She pulled away slightly. "Let me finish, cuz if I snuggle up to you right now I'm going to collapse again and I'll never get this out."  
  
Brandon nodded and Buffy continued. "I have to do this slayer gig until the day I die, which I might have forgotten to mention will be sooner rather then later. I asked Giles once what the average age for a slayer was. He wouldn't tell me so I looked it up in all his old books. The average age a slayer dies at is 17. The oldest recorded slayer ever since the dawn of time is 21. This afternoon I walked in on Giles in the library. He was talking to someone on the phone and he mentioned a prophecy in a big fat book that was written hundreds of years ago that said tonight I was supposed to go fight this Master Vampire and he would kill me. Giles was going to send me anyway, knowing I wouldn't survive. I don't want to die, Brandon. My life may suck beyond the telling of it, but I don't want to die and Giles doesn't really care if I die because when a slayer dies another one is called. We're disposable. I'm disposable," Buffy's voice broke and the tears she'd kept back spilled forth in a rush over her cheeks.  
  
Brandon gathered her into his arms and held her. He buried his face in her hair and when he spoke his voice swelled with a rage she had never heard. "You are not disposable. You are the most amazing creature I've ever met in my entire life and there's only one of you and there will never, ever be another person like you. "  
  
Buffy shook her head. "That's just because I'm the only slayer you've ever met. If you had met the one before me, or the one that will come after me, you wouldn't say that."  
  
Brandon grinned a little and pulled back so he could look down into her eyes. "Buffy, I've been in love with you for weeks now, long before I ever even had any idea what a slayer was. I thought you were the most amazing thing I'd ever seen from the moment I saw you make that face you make when you drink tequila or bite into a lime." 


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight  
  
Buffy smiled as he walked toward her. "I thought you'd never come. What took you so long?" she asked.  
  
He shrugged. "I got side tracked I guess." He sat down beside her in the courtyard. The sun shone down on them. She stared unabashedly at him. He was beautiful, so pale the sun made him glow. His hair and eyes by contrast were so dark in the glow that they were almost black.  
  
"I miss you so much," she said.  
  
He smiled. "I've never left you. We're tied together, you and I, forever," he whispered to her.  
  
"Tied together? How do I know you? Why do I love you? I've never met you," she whispered back.  
  
"You're my soul's mate and I yours. You've met me a thousand times. I've loved you a thousand more. We're destined to meet and fall in love over and over," he explained.  
  
"And this time?" she asked hopefully.  
  
"Not this time, but next time," he promised.  
  
"Is that why everything is wrong?" She asked.  
  
He shrugged. "Having each other doesn't make everything right, sometimes it makes it harder."  
  
She shook her head. "It can't be harder then this."  
  
He stood up and leaned over. He placed a kiss on her forehead. He walked into the shadows across the courtyard and disappeared.  
  
Buffy woke up to fingers caressing her face. She smiled and turned into them. The smile faded when she opened her eyes and the eyes she looked into were blue and not chocolate brown.  
  
"Morning," Brandon said, completely unaffected by her fading smile.  
  
"Hey," Buffy greeted and tried to replace the faded smile with something adequate.  
  
"You were whispering Angel and crying in your sleep, so I thought I'd wake you," Brandon said.  
  
"Sorry," she whispered.  
  
He shook his head. "It's fine."  
  
Buffy sighed. "No, Brandon. It's really not. Everything here is wrong."  
  
"We can go somewhere else, anywhere else you want," he promised.  
  
"No it's not the place, it's the life. Something is wrong, something is missing and I don't know how to fix it," Buffy said.  
  
Brandon pressed his lips into a thin line. He looked down toward her feet. "It's Angel, isn't it?"  
  
Buffy nodded slightly. "I'm sorry. It doesn't make any sense. He's not even real. He's some guy I imagined in a dream and then in a statue and I know he's the missing piece in my life but I don't know why or even who he is."  
  
Brandon wordlessly handed her an old, yellowed book. Buffy took it and looked down. It was the hotel registry from the year 1952. Brandon pointed out a name to her. Buffy looked down with wide eyes. In very elegant script was the name Angel, no last name just Angel. Next to the name was the room number 217. Tears rushed to her eyes. "He's real. I didn't imagine him or make him up," she whispered.  
  
Brandon shrugged. "And he was here in 1952 in this room."  
  
Buffy swallowed hard. "But that'd make him like seventy something years old."  
  
Brandon nodded.  
  
"Why am I am dreaming about this young guy that I've never met and in reality is seventy years old?" Buffy asked looking up into Brandon's blue eyes.  
  
"I don't know. I wish I had an explanation for you. Maybe if I did..." Brandon trailed off.  
  
Buffy laid the registry in her lap. She cupped Brandon's face with her hand. "I'm not very fair to you. You're so good to me and I'm just using you."  
  
Brandon smiled slightly and shook his head. "You're not using me and even if you were, I'd let you. I love you, Buffy and I know you don't love me. I know that whoever this Angel is, whatever he is, you belong to him heart and soul. I don't know why he's not here now but I'm grateful. I get to be with you when he's not."  
  
"I meant it when I told you I need you. You tie to me this world, without you-sometimes I think I'd float away," Buffy said.  
  
"Then you don't have to love me, it's enough just that you need me," Brandon said and turned his lips into his hand. He placed a light kiss on her palm.  
  
Buffy sighed. "Do we have more angel dust?"  
  
Brandon nodded. "But you need to eat. You haven't been eating much at all. I've got a little money left. I'll run go get some tacos."  
  
Buffy nodded. "And then?"  
  
"After you eat, I'll get you some more," he said.  
  
"Thank you," she whispered.  
  
Brandon placed a light kiss on her lips. "I'll always take care of you, Babe."  
  
Buffy got up and wandered around the bedroom while Brandon was gone. She carried the hotel registry with His name in it. She brushed a hand across the surface of a desk. Her fingers came away thick with dust. Everything smelled musty. She lit one of the candles Brandon had gathered and set it on the surface of the desk. She pulled the chair out and sat down in it. She laid the registry on the desk and wondered if he had sat here. With careful fingers, she cautiously pulled drawers out. In the very back, coated with a thick layer of dust, she found a piece of heavy paper.  
  
Buffy pulled the paper out and blew the dust off of it. She held it up so she could see it by candle light. Her breath caught. It was sketch of her. It could have been done yesterday. She was standing in the sun on a dock and she looked happy in a way she never remembered being. In the top left hand corner it was signed:  
  
You still my girl?  
  
A  
  
Tears filled her eyes and she franticly searched for a pen in her bag. She couldn't find one. She knew what her response was supposed to be. He had asked her this question before, a thousand times before and her answer had been the same each time. Finally in desperation she pulled a dagger from her bag. She made a small cut on her finger and wrote in blood on the bottom right hand corner:  
  
Always,  
  
B  
  
Buffy sucked on her finger and placed the sketch back in the drawer. She carefully closed it and went to wander around the hotel some more until Brandon got back.  
  
Hyperion Hotel Los Angeles 1952  
  
Angel shut the door and opened the blood the hotel employee had brought him. He poured it into a crystal cut scotch glass and sat down at the desk. He closed his eyes and the image of the girl he'd been dreaming about came to mind.  
  
He didn't know her but somehow he knew everything about her. She was tiny and blond but she radiated strength, strength of spirit, strength of heart. He even knew what she smelled like, vanilla, sunshine and strength. She was the sunrise in the form of a girl and he loved her. He didn't even know her name. He'd drawn countless sketches of her, most of them of her on a dock in the sunlight. Somehow he knew exactly what she looked like in the sun, how it made her glow like a real angel, not the broken kind he was. Yesterday he had done another sketch of her on the dock in the glorious sunlight. On a whim he'd written in the top left hand corner:  
  
You still my girl?  
  
A  
  
He'd told himself he'd gone off his rocker finally and tucked it in the back of a drawer in the desk. Now he opened the drawer and slid the sketch out. If he'd been alive his heart would have skipped a beat. The lower right hand corner was signed:  
  
Always,  
  
B.  
  
He sniffed the paper. She'd signed it in blood and the scent of her rolled over him like a tide. He could taste her blood in his mouth and he knew somehow some way he'd tasted it before. It was sweet and rich and so powerful. And when he'd tasted it, it had been given with love and trust. He knew he hadn't taken anything from this girl. It had all been given freely.  
  
Without thought he wrote across the bottom of the sketch in flowing script  
  
I will find you. If I were blind I would see you.  
  
A.  
  
Hyperion Hotel Los Angeles 1997  
  
Buffy slid out of the bed. Brandon was sound asleep. He stirred slightly as she slipped from his arms but fell back into his customary heavy sleep within seconds.  
  
It was morning. Buffy could tell by the sunlight falling though the small crack in the heavy curtains. It splashed on the desk, guiding her to it. She opened the bottom drawer, the same one she'd put the sketch back in two days ago. She withdrew the sketch and read the new words written there.  
  
I will find you. If I were blind I would see you.  
  
A.  
  
Buffy bit her bottom lip. She needed to figure this out. She had to come with a reasonable explanation of how this was happening. She was communicating with someone from 1952. She wondered briefly if he was a ghost, haunting this place. She dismissed the thought though. He was too real feeling inside of her to be a ghost. She dug the rest of the angel dust out of Brandon's bag. She sniffed more then she ever had before. She found a pen in his bag and scribbled Thank you across a blank page on the hotel registry.  
  
She slipped out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her. She giggled as the angel dust took hold of her. She floated through the hotel, haunting it's halls like a ghost herself. She needed to find him. She knew that she'd only be complete if she could find him.  
  
A side kick smashed open the boarded up door that led to a wing that apparently hadn't been used in a very long time. She wandered through the hallway. It smelled damp and moldy. Buffy sneezed and it made her giggle. She wandered into what must have been the hotel kitchen. She sat down on the floor cross legged. Buffy bent over her legs and laid her cheek on the cool, cracked tile floor. All her senses were enhanced. She smiled. She knew it was how she was going to find Angel. Maybe it was the Powers that Be way of helping her, or maybe it was the angel dust. It didn't matter. She heard what was under the floor.  
  
Buffy sat up on her knees and drove her right fist into the floor. She hit the same place with methodical punches. The tile cracked around her fist and then the wooden floor underneath. Little bones in her hand broke, blood coated her fist and she didn't feel anything. Her fist broke through and floor crumbled all around her. Buffy looked through the hole she'd made and smiled. Underneath the kitchen floor lay a swimming pool and somehow the water was still clear and blue and wonderful looking.  
  
Buffy found a fire ax and used it make the hole in the floor wider. Once it was big enough she took a step. She weighed less then nothing, she'd float all the way down. She made an awfully big splash for someone that was floating, she thought. Water rushed up her nose and she emerged on the surface of the water. She blew the water out of her nose and relaxed back. The water would catch her. She'd float all the way to Angel.  
  
*  
  
When Brandon woke up Buffy was gone. He scrubbed a hand over his face and hair. He got up and pulled on his jeans and a white wife beater. It took him hours to find her. The hotel was huge. He didn't even know it had a pool.  
  
"Buffy," he said stepping into the pool room. There was no answer. He walked closer to the pool and vomited when he saw her floating in the pool. He dived in and gathered her in his arms. He pulled her to the side, hauling her out of the pool.  
  
"Buffy, come on, Babe don't do this to me," he had taken a CPR class years ago. It came rushing to him as if it was yesterday. He pinched her nose and breathed into her mouth. He did chest compressions on her. There was nothing. He held her wrist in his hand. There was no pulse. Her skin was cool to the touch.  
  
He pulled her body into his and wrapped himself around her. She seemed even tinier in death then she had in life. He sobbed over the girl who didn't belong to him and yet he belonged to her in every way. 


	9. The End

Chapter Nine  
  
Rome Italy 2004 (Present Day)  
  
"Earth to Buffy," Dawn said.  
  
"Huh?" Buffy looked up with a start. She shook her head. Everything seemed fuzzy somehow. She glanced around. She and Dawn were sitting in a little Italian café drinking espresso. She furrowed her brow. She didn't remember coming here. "Dawn, what day is it?"  
  
"Thursday, Buffy are you okay? Cuz if you're going mental it might be a good idea to call Willow or Giles or someone," Dawn said.  
  
"Yeah, I'm fine. Uhm, let's go to London. I think seeing Willow and Giles might be a good idea. And Xander, I need to see Xander. You can stay with them for a little while. I need to go to Los Angeles," Buffy said.  
  
Dawn grinned. "Does this mean you're cookies?"  
  
"What? How did you-"Buffy started.  
  
"Relax, I over heard you telling Willow about it on the bus after we cratered Sunnydale," Dawn said.  
  
The two Summers girls stood up and walked back to their apartment. Buffy threw clothes in a suitcase without any recollection of what she was doing. She just knew she needed to get to Angel as soon as possible. She had to find out if he was okay.  
  
*  
  
Wolfram and Hart Los Angeles 2004  
  
"Angel, are you quite alright?" Wes asked.  
  
"Sorry, Wes, I was-I was thinking about something else," Angel said. He looked down at the legal sized notepad in front of him. He smiled faintly. He'd sketched a picture of Buffy in the sunlight, the way he'd found her on the Day that Wasn't. It had been a long time since he'd drawn her that way. Memories came rushing back to him along with things that weren't memories, things he remembered happening but he knew hadn't happened. He furrowed his brow and glanced up at Wes.  
  
"Illyria..." he trailed off.  
  
"Is fine. She's having a hard time dealing with the loss of her powers but I think she'll be okay. She may even end up being an asset to our team," Wes said.  
  
Angel nodded. He remembered the weapon Wes had used to steal some of Illyria's power before it had destroyed Fred's body. He stood up. He needed some time to think about the things he remembered. "Wes, I'm going to go back to my penthouse. If anything comes up, let me know."  
  
"Of course," Wes said.  
  
Once in his penthouse, Angel opened the curtains and took a seat in a chair next to the necro-tempered glass window. The sunlight poured over him and he stared at the sketch of Buffy. He remembered being staked by the slayer that had come before Buffy. He also remembered watching Buffy. He remembered her crying at the feet of a marble angel. He remembered her lying in the arms of a blond boy. He remembered her taking drugs and running away from the Master. He remembered her drowning in the swimming pool in the Hyperion Hotel, all things that had never happened in this reality.  
  
He also remembered the sketch that seemed to have passed through time. The sketch he'd made of Buffy in 1952, almost thirty years before she'd been born. He remembered how they'd communicated back and forth, through time, with that sketch. He shook his head. It didn't make sense. Illyria's time warp should have altered everything. He should be dust and Buffy-he swallowed hard and picked up the phone. He dialed the number he had for Giles in London.  
  
*  
  
Buffy stood before the door. She took a deep breath. It had been a year since she'd seen him. She'd changed in the last year. It was amazing how much life you could live when you weren't always worried about the next apocalypse, hell even the next night. She took another deep breath. The tingle at the base of her spine spread like flame to paper. It rushed up her spine and made her gasp. She raised her hand to knock on the door and it opened. He stood there in front of her, a beautiful broken Angel.  
  
"Buffy,"  
  
"Angel," she responded.  
  
They stared at each other, into each other for a space of minutes. Finally he stepped aside and she walked in. He closed the door behind her.  
  
"Wow, this place is...amazing. You always find the coolest places to live," Buffy said looking around.  
  
"Thanks," His cool and composure lasted for about three seconds and then he rushed up behind her and pulled her into his body. He wrapped himself around her and sighed with relief. "You're okay,"  
  
She nodded against his chest. "I missed you,"  
  
They both knew she wasn't talking about the year they'd just spent apart.  
  
"I know," he said.  
  
"It was all wrong when you weren't there," she said.  
  
"I'm sorry," he said.  
  
"What happened?" She asked.  
  
"A slayer-the one before you, India," he said.  
  
Buffy nodded. "I knew you were....there was no other way you wouldn't be there."  
  
"I was though," he said.  
  
"You remember it?" she asked.  
  
He nodded. "I watched you cry over the marble angel in the cemetery. I watched you spiral down so far. I never realized-"he stopped. He had never realized he had made such an impact on her life. He knew she had saved him but until Illyria's time warp, he hadn't realized he had saved her too. "I saw you with him," Angel said.  
  
"He-I didn't love him, not like I love you but he took care of me. I needed him," Buffy explained.  
  
"I know. It's okay," Angel said.  
  
"I'm not leaving again this time and I'm not letting you leave. That little replay of This is my life without Angel in it was enough to convince me. I need you in my life and yeah maybe it's hard and maybe it hurts but without you...I'm broken," Buffy said.  
  
Angel's response was to pull her tighter to him. He couldn't get the image of her body floating in the Hyperion Hotel Pool out of his head. There would be time later to talk about what had happened, what was going to happen but he wasn't letting her go this time. She could use all the baking, cooking analogies she wanted, he was going to be there to help. He released his hold slightly and placed his fingers under her chin. He tilted her head up and his lips brushed across hers. She smiled into his mouth and tip toed, bringing their lips closer, increasing the pressure of the kiss. He tangled his fingers in her hair and pulled her even closer. Their body met and a fire ignited. He nipped at her bottom lip and she moaned.  
  
And there in lie all their problems, Angel pushed away from her gasping for breath he didn't need. He rested his forehead against the cool glass of the window.  
  
"I'm still not leaving," Buffy said. "We'll deal with this. I'm not an eighteen year old girl anymore. I've had sex, I've had mature relationships and I felt more love lying in your arms knowing the reason you trembled is because you want me so much and you can't have me. No one else has ever loved me that much."  
  
"And no one else ever will," Angel said.  
  
"So can I stay?" She asked.  
  
"I'm not letting you leave," Angel said. He turned and looked at her. He opened his arms and she threw herself into them.  
  
Angel buried his nose in the crown of her head and breathed in the scent of her. She smelled the same way she always had, vanilla, sunshine and strength. She was still his sunrise in the form of a girl.  
  
*  
  
Buffy stood on the door step of a shabby little house in Los Angeles. She pressed the door bell and listened to it sound inside. The man who answered the door had a shaved head, several tattoos and a few scars from facial piercings that had been taken out a few years ago.  
  
"Derek Cummings?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Shit, you're her," the man said.  
  
Buffy looked around her. "I'm sorry," she said in askance.  
  
"The girl in the picture, B or maybe A," he said.  
  
"Buffy, but what picture?" Buffy asked.  
  
Derek stepped aside and motioned her in the house. Buffy walked into a shabby, messy living room. "Sorry 'bout the mess. I'm a bachelor," Derek apologized.  
  
Buffy shook her head. "It's okay. It's just like I remember," she whispered. Even though she knew the apartment she remembered had been in Sunnydale. This one held the same feeling, the same look. There was even a poster of the band Black Sabbath over the couch. It was the same one she remembered hanging over Brandon's bed.  
  
"Hold on a sec. Let me get it," Derek said as he stepped into another room. He returned a few minutes later holding a yellowed sketch. He held it out to her and Buffy's breath caught.  
  
It was Angel's sketch. The top left hand corner said Are you still my girl? The bottom right hand corner said Always and the words I will find you. If I were blind I would see you flowed across the bottom. "Where did you get this?" She asked.  
  
"A friend of mine, Brandon Smits, died several years ago. This was found with his stuff, "Derek explained.  
  
Buffy gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. Tears filled her eyes. He'd been real and somehow he'd remembered her too.  
  
"He used to talk about this girl in his dreams, a tiny blond with sad hazel eyes. He never had a name for her. He just said she was the love of his life and then he'd get kind of distant and sad looking. I tried to get him to talk about it but he wouldn't ever say much beyond that. I thought he'd made you up, honestly, until I saw you standing on my doorstep," Derek said.  
  
Buffy shook her head. "How? When?" She asked.  
  
"He overdosed on PCP in 1997 in an old hotel near here-"Derek started.  
  
"The Hyperion, near the pool," she said.  
  
Derek nodded. "Guess you heard it on the news."  
  
"Yeah, I remember it now. Thank you and I'm sorry to bother you," Buffy said. She gestured with the picture. "Can I have this?"  
  
"Sure, it's more yours then it is mine. So, what was the deal with you and Brandon?" Derek asked.  
  
Buffy smiled slightly. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," 


End file.
